Hi all. A couple months ago while driving in Seattle, I was driving up a hill fast to beat the light. As I was entering the next section of the hill (where the hill flattens out and then rises again), I hit the incline hard enough that the whole car shook. I pulled over to the side, one because it rattled the hell out of me and two because the car kind of stalled for a second and then came back. No smells or leaks and no apparent damage that I could see then and is still the case now. But I have noticed that my MPG has gone down and the car is feeling sluggish. It could just be that the car has almost 82k miles on it and is almost time for a major tune up but I would like to get some other opinions. Mostly I fear that I may have cracked my engine block. Does the check engine light come on for that?
I think the prudent thing to do would be to have the undercarriage inspected. Hard to tell what you may have damaged.
it's definitely not in need of a major tune up. it could just be your imagination, but get it up on a lift for a major inspection.
No, you didn't crack the block. That would take a lot of force; enough that it would severely damage the suspension too. The oil pan is on the bottom of the engine and can be damaged (easy check for leaks or damage) but would have no effect on mpg's (unless run completely out of oil=Check Engine Light).
It’s a 2014 Prius 3, which should be 48/50mpg street/highway respectively. But right now it’s feeling sluggish with Mpg of 38/50. I’m a Lyft/Uber driver in my spare time so the miles add up fast so I’m usually getting an oil change once every 5-6 weeks. The last one was three weeks ago.
Checked for oil leaks and haven’t seen any and the oil pan looks fine. The suspension is fine as far as I can tell. Just looking at the area that hit the beginning of the hill, it looks fine. Scraped, but otherwise fine.
If a dealer or shop did it, check their work. Check engine oil shade and level. Helping people at work about similar problem, 9 out of 10 times that's the case. When nothing was absolutely bad prior to oil change, engine oil was overfilled or never changed by the people working there. Dark coffee engine oil color that was "changed" a few weeks ago by shop or dealership.
I can't see a missed oil change suddenly dropping mpg though. Maybe an oil change, but with significantly heavier oil. It may just be a series of unfortunate events too: you slammed the bottom, everything's ok, but with the temps dropping of late your mpg is starting to drop too. Our has, just up the road from you.
Okay so I’m going to take it to the mechanics tomorrow. I was wrong about the Mpg. City is 25 to 30 and highway is 40 to 45. I’m also smelling something odd from the heaters when I’m going up hills
They checked and couldn’t find anything wrong. Undercarriage is definitely scraped but nothing broke through.
